Expert on growing Polish troops on Belarus’ border: they will not even dare to bite

Poland is allocating record funding to a group of troops located on the border with Belarus: $200m+. Vadim Yelfimov, the Head of the Department of Social Policy and Ideology at the Academy of Management under the President of the Republic of Belarus, explained why Warsaw is eagerly spending money on this endeavour.

“The lessons of history do not teach Poland and its government anything. In Germany, an expression was coined that referred to revanchists: the latter were called ‘forever yesterday’. Today, such political behaviour is demonstrated by the Polish authorities – regardless even of historical epochs, because they were part of a wide variety of states. The Polish leadership seriously tended to the West, they took loans from there, but later those loans led Poland to poverty, lack of food, and so on. In this regard, I recall that our President Aleksandr Lukashenko set the task for Belarus to have a non-credit-dependent economy back in the 1990s. This is very important, and it always has political consequences," the expert noted in his talk with Alfa Radio. “Poland received a total of about 90bn Euros in subsidies from the European Union in the 1990s, and that money was not a gift: the country had to spend $165bn on rearmament when it was joining NATO, because the country was then refusing everything related to the USSR. However, the Polish government was not doing what it is doing today: building up its military group. We can imagine what huge sums are being withdrawn from the Polish economy, from ordinary Poles now. As you know, Poland wants to expand its military grouping to 300 thousand people. Our Belarusian army consists of 60,000 people, and they want us to face a 300,000-strong Polish group. Actually, this is not the way to defend itself.”

With this in mind, Mr. Yelfimov explained what Warsaw is preparing for, “Recalling the theory of military tactics and strategy, I will say that a three- or four-fold advantage is needed for an offensive. Apparently, Poland is preparing for such a step. Therefore, Belarus’ behaviour and political course, the decision of our President to deploy Russian operational tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of the republic is just what is needed. Of course, this step has made Poland stop. They can pump themselves up there as much as they want, but I can say for sure: they will not just break their teeth if decide to deal with Belarus, they will not even dare to bite.”